UK Royal Navy Marine Mammal Observations

Occurrence Observation
Latest version published by OBIS-SEAMAP on Oct 7, 2025 OBIS-SEAMAP

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 1,407 records in English (140 KB) - Update frequency: continually
Metadata as an EML file download in English (25 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (14 KB)

Description

Original provider: UK Royal Navy Dataset credits: United Kingdom Royal Navy Abstract: This dataset includes unclassified incidental sightings of cetaceans from the United Kingdom Royal Navy ships. The dataset is global in coverage.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 1,407 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Maughan, B. and K. Arnold. 2010. UK Royal Navy Marine Mammal Observations. Version 2.0.0. Dataset published in OBIS-SEAMAP. https://doi.org/10.82144/2b9d75fd.

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is OBIS-SEAMAP. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 5136e139-312d-47d0-a665-dc8e6b351254.  OBIS-SEAMAP publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.

Keywords

Occurrence; Observation; Marine Biology; Visual sighting; Occurrence

External data

The resource data is also available in other formats

OBIS-SEAMAP Dataset Page https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/64 UTF-8 Interactive map
FGDC Metadata https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/64/fgdc UTF-8 XML
EML Metadata https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/64/eml UTF-8 XML

Contacts

Kate Arnold
  • Owner
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
  • Primary contact
Kate Arnold
Ben Maughan
  • Owner
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
  • Primary contact
UK Hydrographic Office
OBIS-SEAMAP
  • Metadata Provider
  • Distributor
Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab, Duke University
  • A328 LSRC building
27708 Durham
NC
US

Geographic Coverage

Oceans

Bounding Coordinates South West [-74.65, -122.43], North East [70.33, 159.23]

Taxonomic Coverage

Scientific names are based on the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).

Order Cetacea (Cetaceans)
Family Balaenopteridae (Rorquals), Delphinidae (Dolphins), Phocoenidae (Porpoises)
Genus Balaenoptera (Baleen whales), Eubalaena (right whales), Globicephala (Pilot whales), Hyperoodon (bottle-nosed whales), Lagenorhynchus (White-beaked dolphins), Mesoplodon (Beaked whales), Stenella (Spinner dolphins)
Species Balaenoptera acutorostrata (Common minke whale), Balaenoptera borealis (Sei whale), Balaenoptera brydei (Bryde's whale), Balaenoptera musculus (Blue whale), Balaenoptera physalus (Fin whale), Caperea marginata (Pygmy right whale), Cephalorhynchus commersonii (Commerson's dolphin), Delphinus delphis (Short-beaked common dolphin), Eschrichtius robustus (Gray whale), Eubalaena australis (Southern right whale), Globicephala macrorhynchus (Short-finned pilot whale), Globicephala melas (Long-finned pilot whale), Grampus griseus (Risso's dolphin), Hyperoodon planifrons (Southern bottlenose whale), Kogia breviceps (Pygmy sperm whale), Lagenorhynchus acutus (Atlantic white-sided dolphin), Lagenorhynchus albirostris (White-beaked dolphin), Lagenorhynchus australis (Peale's dolphin), Lagenorhynchus cruciger (Hourglass dolphin), Lagenorhynchus obscurus (Dusky dolphin), Megaptera novaeangliae (Humpback whale), Orcinus orca (Killer whale), Phocoena phocoena (Harbor porpoise), Physeter macrocephalus (Sperm whale), Pseudorca crassidens (False killer whale), Sousa chinensis (Chinese white dolphin), Stenella attenuata (Pantropical spotted dolphin), Stenella clymene (Clymene dolphin), Stenella coeruleoalba (Striped dolphin), Stenella frontalis (Atlantic spotted dolphin), Stenella longirostris (Spinner dolphin), Tursiops truncatus (Common bottlenose dolphin), Ziphius cavirostris (Cuvier's beaked whale)
Subspecies Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda (Pygmy blue whale)

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1947-10-21 / 2003-03-31

Project Data

No Description available

Title UK Royal Navy Marine Mammal Observations
Funding NA

The personnel involved in the project:

Kate Arnold
  • Owner
Ben Maughan
  • Owner

Sampling Methods

NA

Study Extent NA

Method step description:

  1. NA

Collection Data

Collection Name zd_64
Collection Identifier zd_64
Parent Collection Identifier OBIS-SEAMAP

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Maughan, Ben. 2003. United Kingdom Royal Navy Cetacean Sightings.

Additional Metadata

marine, harvested by iOBIS.

Purpose

The Royal Navy often operates in remote areas and the purpose of collecting this sort of data is to contribute to a better scientific understanding of cetacean distributions, breeding areas, migration routes, etc. By ensuring that Royal Navy personnel keep watch for cetaceans helps them to comply with current risk mitigation measures.

Alternative Identifiers https://doi.org/10.82144/2b9d75fd
https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/64
https://www.gbif.org/dataset/5136e139-312d-47d0-a665-dc8e6b351254
https://obis.org/dataset/5a804d4e-7393-46ff-971c-0beceba02086
5136e139-312d-47d0-a665-dc8e6b351254
https://ipt.env.duke.edu/resource?r=zd_64